The Modi Mandate: Development or Hindutva?

Ever since Aam Aadmi Party’s stunning win in Delhi Assembly elections, there is a rash of analysis and advice for Modi government (which has mostly fallen on deaf ears, and no surprise there – they know their support base).

I have several opinions around this issue that differ from the common consensus, so sharing them.

Development or Hindutva?

Several people are looking at BJP’s stunning defeat in the Delhi Assembly elections as a rejection of their communal agenda by people. This couldn’t be further from the truth. As Yashwant Sinha rightfully pointed out in his piece in the Economic Times, BJP’s vote share hasn’t really dropped all that drastically. The last time Delhi saw a BJP government was in 1993. In 1998, BJP got dislodged by the Sheila Dixit led Congress Party governments right up to the previous election where AAP formed a minority government. BJP’s vote share for Assembly Elections has not really changed much.

[tweetthis twitter_handles=”@Vidyut, @_AamJanata”]BJP has lost Delhi with a higher vote share than it had when it got the most seats in 2013[/tweetthis]

BJP got 34.02% votes in 1998, 35.22 in 2003, and 36.34 in 2008 – all three of which it lost to the Congress. The splitting of the decaying Congress vote between Congress and AAP in 2013 saw it get the most seats in the 2013 elections with just 33.07% of the votes – actually lower than all the intervening years when it lost. They didn’t have the numbers to form a majority government, but they did get the most votes.

This, to me indicates that around slightly more than a third of the voters – give or take – are with BJP no matter what – regardless of how it plays out in the results. This number has sustained through several losses – it is now the fifth time BJP has failed to form a government in Delhi. I would see this as an ideological base to a large extent – which it has retained. And the numbers pretty much show that as long as one viable alternative exists, whether Congress or AAP – BJP remains out of power in Delhi.

So what is it about the “Mandate for Development”?

That is the part BJP supporters omit. When Modi was campaigning for the Lok Sabha Elections promoting development, the BJP vote share was NOT around a third and approached closer to half at 46%. In this election, it went back to normal. In other words, if anyone believed the development propaganda, they have stopped believing it now.

This was inevitable, because it was the throwaway mandate by design. What is telling about this mandate is that even if we ignore the Lok Sabha vote share, what is immediately evident is that BJP failed to gain votes from the complete decimation of a party that ruled Delhi for 15 years – it actually lost votes even if not a large percentage. Congress votes simply went over to AAP while even BJP share dropped slightly as though AAP stepped into the vacuum left by Congress seamlessly while adding other voters as well. In other words, no one other than loyalists seem to have remained with BJP in Delhi. AAP, which didn’t exist two years ago got a vote share of 54% – an actual majority of votes as well (even if not as representative of remaining 46%).If this doesn’t scream irrelevance to the realities and changes happening in Delhi, I don’t know what does.

Why can’t BJP just start focusing on development again?

They are focusing on development. They never stopped. Only after elections, the development focus has been made clearer as the development of the large corporate mandate – which has been the hidden third mandate no one spoke about all through. The victory was a result of all three mandates. The Hindutva wing provided ground support and volunteers through unaccountable funding, while radicalizing the masses to consolidate the Hindu votes. The crony capitalist mandate provided the finances as well as control of media to extend the reach of campaign propaganda, as well as attack opponents and cover up things that would not bring popularity to BJP. The development mandate provided the votes that took Modi’s government beyond the “Delhi standard” vote share.

The last was the domain of most of Modi’s speeches and one never intended for delivery – which is how all the U-Turns started popping up as soon as the government came to power. Given that the corporate world and the unwashed masses have always been at odds, it was absolutely impossible that the Modi government could deliver on both development as well as crony capitalism.

While positions of power and social impunity went to the ideological mandate, Hindutva (appointments, social “reforms” like gharwapsi or text book alterations); profits and economic impunity went to the corporate mandate (sabotaging of land rights, environmental protections, and much, much more – this is HUGE MONEY). Delivering to the common man at large was never the intent – this was a consolidation of power and control, not service task. Some things may be done that don’t inconvenience either of the other two “real” backers. They will be publicized to the hilt to create a perception of vast service to people, but there is only so much you can tell people they are experiencing prosperity if they aren’t. We saw that this elections.

But what about secularism?

What about it? It is lip service. Communal control over country is what the Hindutva brigade got for its investment in the Modi government. Secularism is not compatible with it. Would Modi like to be communal? I don’t think so. Modi is a narcissist. He is rather besotted with his image as a progressive leader, which is opposite of regressive. Which is how, in spite of altering textbooks to more Hindutva friendly versions or pretending not to notice the rise of the fan clubs for Nathuram Godse, he continues to use Congress leaders when trying to impress people. It is the best he can do. To pretend he does not see the rise of communalism and give them the impunity of his silence.

Not that he has much choice, because if he endorses secularism, his Hindutva supporters (almost his entire vote bank at this stage) will simply ignore him. Not even the lowliest troll shows an iota of respect for Modi when he calls for religious tolerance.

So, I disagree with a lot of columnists when they recommend things that Modi should do to regain his popularity. Modi cannot regain his popularity by speaking of development, since he hasn’t delivered it. Modi cannot regain his popularity by endorsing secularism because his core vote bank will not allow it. The disillusioned voters who get swung on hope, have swung AAP’s way this time. All Modi will end up doing if he tries to get secular is piss off his supporters. All Modi will end up doing if he actually tries to deliver on promises is piss off profiteers who are in no mood to share.

His best bets are to keep his head low and siphon off as much profit to his sponsors and power to his mentors as he can. It is going to be very difficult to pull off a second con this close to the first.

Every predator is someone else’s prey

However, Modi is going to need to find new ways to hook voters. The AAP victory has made a mockery of his claims of development – a fact no other state going for elections will forget. When Nitish Kumar praised Trinamool Congress, BJP supporters were quick to sneer at an anti-BJP front, but both Uddhav Thackeray and Sharad Pawar too have taken pot shots at Modi in recent days. Incidentally, this would be the same Sharad Pawar of the Nationalist Corrupt Party that Modi gushed over on Valentine’s Day as the one to support him when the UPA was in power.

This is going to be a problem. Because Modi will be a laughing stock if he tries to rule forever with ordinances. At the same time, without winning in states, he is going to find it very difficult to get any bills through the Rajya Sabha.

If a runaway victory for AAP creates a potential democracy crisis in Delhi Government, it is countered by the control exerted by a hostile center government.

Similarly a runaway victory for the BJP government is held in check by the “anti-BJP” fronts mushrooming. The Delhi Elections may have dazzled everything else out of the spotlight, but the AAP government was endorsed by the extremely unlikely pair of CPI as well as TMC in Delhi – who both asked their followers to vote for AAP. Nitish Kumar as well. At least three other political leaders of other parties have voiced skepticism over targeting of AAP via AVAM just days before the elections. Bihar sees another unlikely pair willing to cooperate to defeat BJP with Nitish Kumar and Lalu Prasad Yadav burying their legendary hostility to defeat the BJP. Aditya Thackeray welcomed the rise of AAP in Maharashtra (more a taunt to BJP than any real wish to embrace AAP values or compete on such a premise at all).

Given such a climate, BJP appears to have few choices beyond counting on its Hindutva loyalists to deliver miracles and the corporate mandate to do PR as well as damage control while they use every dirty trick in the book to discredit opponents. I am amazed they haven’t yet applied their phenomenal strategy skills to splitting opponent votes between two strong opponents rather than this harder way of discrediting or dummy candidates and such, but I am delighted they haven’t. In any case, I don’t imagine any change of methods is on the cards for BJP at this stage.

Thus, any pleas to Modi to deliver development or embrace secularism, in my view are highly unlikely to materialize – no matter how many columnists think they are a good idea.

Comments 5

Interesting perspective indeed. What is amazing is how quickly everything seems to have unravelled. Barely an year. And honestly, most of those ‘columnists’ who are lecturing him on secularism were saying secularism is dead and singing paeans to Modi not long ago. So there’s that

Interesting perspective indeed. What is amazing is how quickly everything seems to have unravelled. Barely an year. And honestly, most of those ‘columnists’ who are lecturing him on secularism were speaking secularism is dead and singing paeans to Modi not long ago. So there’s that

If BJP is communal, would you say the congress, which always called for caste based votes on the name of freebees for minority or Laloo are secular & worthy ? Or would you bet for AAP which went on directionless and senseless hiring spree to get candidates for Lok sabha elections and promised unreasonable soaps like free electricity to lure people to vote ?

There really isn’t much of a difference between BJP and Congress in terms of political opportunism. I have no idea why you see Congress as opposite of BJP. Heck they’ve even entered Loksabha via BJP this time.

The development of BJP isn’t a complete lie. Its not really crony captalism … more like lobbyism. A mild form of the former. It is in disagreement with the spirit of Indian constitution in that development should not be oriented towards the last man (as gandhi’s talisman on ncert books wants you to). Its based on hard realization that a part can only develop by exploiting other part. And its better to tax the rich less than the poor. It can work – as eventually the whole region can develop and that exploitation shifts to another country – or another part of the country which no one cares about – as amount of capital increases. However the world is changing at an alarming pace and such an old method may not (and in my opinion will not) give the desired or expected result unlike old times. It may end up increasing the problems of India rather than solving them. Only the time will tell.